Fake Law by The Secret Barrister - A Review

 

This is the book that many of us have been waiting and calling for over the last few years. There has always been a tendency for the media and politicians to put out wildly inaccurate reports on legal matters. But it has certainly got far worse in the last few years. This has led to the creation of two parallel worlds – the one inhabited by working lawyers and judges and the one built by those who loudly promote ill-informed nonsense - Fake Law.

The Secret Barrister looks at some of the worst excesses and forensically takes them apart. Here are just a few…

She* looks at the tragic cases of Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans where there was disagreement between the parents and the treating doctors about whether to continue medical care. Both led to hysterical reporting which in turn drove groups of protestors to take direct action. There were even politicians in the USA talking about death panels in order to promote their own health care agenda. The Secret Barrister carefully explains the duty of the court and the critical importance of the welfare of the two children.

Other myths are similarly confronted. She explains the purpose of Personal Injury compensation – often to secure basic care. So, behind the media noise about a cleaner getting £9k for falling over a mop is a worker who has suffered an injury serious enough to merit that level of award.

The most powerful section, for me is where we look at the controversial topic of Human Rights which is the subject of outrageously inaccurate reporting. When Theresa May bemoaned that someone could not be deported because of their human rights she ended with – ‘The illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because – and I am not making this up – he had a pet cat.’ It turns out that she was in fact making it up. He did have a pet cat, but it was nothing to do with the decision. In fact human rights are our rights and their importance to all of us is rarely mentioned.

Don’t even get me started on legal aid!

The law is distant and complex to many. It does lend itself to false reporting and misunderstanding. This book is the most important counterbalance that I have seen. My only regret is that the book will mainly be read and praised by lawyers – most of whom do not need to be persuaded. Will it be read by reporters and ministers? I will certainly be sharing it as widely as possible and hope that others to the same.

*The Secret Barrister is anonymous. I use 'she' because I imagine a woman's voice when I am reading the books. No other reason!

This review is now available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R1B4UZ6ZDBADI0/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1529009944

 

This is not Kafka - A review of Welcome to Britain - Colin Yeo

Here is my review of this important and timely book. 

A few weeks ago, a comment on twitter made me choke on my coffee. This was the suggestion from the Home Office that ‘activist lawyers’ were frustrating the removal of unwanted visitors. I have been a lawyer for many years but knew little about what immigration lawyers do. As it was, this timely book then appeared on our shelves. Colin Yeo is an undisputed expert in the field having worked as an immigration barrister for many years.

The first thing that I learned was that such lawyers must be extremely active just to keep up with the sheer volume of laws, regulations and procedures. Colin Yeo points out that we have Acts of Parliament from 1971, 1988, 1999, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2014 and 2016 and counting. Then there are the regulations and other orders – 66 between 2015 – 2017. There is little publicly funded support to enable confused visitors to negotiate this complex maze.

He does not paint the picture of our island that we like to imagine. ‘The image we hold in our minds of Britain as welcoming country is a comforting mirage’. He then gives us pages of real-life stories that has even the most steeled of jaws dropping. At one level we see a ridiculous refusal of asylum because the applicant could not possibly face danger from guerrillas or other primates! At a more obviously disturbing level is the story of the Down’s Syndrome sufferer who was refused leave to remain on the grounds that his UK relatives could send him money. This, like many such decisions, was overturned in the face of negative publicity.

All of this is part of the campaign to reduce net migration at all costs. We have all heard of the hostile environment that led amongst other things to the Windrush scandal. 'The hostile environment has been a disaster. The system encourages race discrimination, the financial costs...have been huge, the wrong people have been catastrophically affected and there has been no discernible decrease in unlawful immigration'

At times Welcome to Britain reads like a Franz Kafka novel. Like the tragedy of Alois Dvorzak an 84 years old Canadian with Alzheimer’s who was still in handcuffs when he ‘took his last breath’ in 2013.

I strongly urge everybody to get a copy of this book and do nothing else until you have read it and grasped the seriousness of the message, and what activist lawyers really do. It is well written, persuasive and topical. Many of my friends will find this in their Christmas stocking this year!

This is the link

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R2YFMGHNNF1TYV/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1785905775